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How to Get a Highly Competitive Sales Force to Collaborate

Guest post by: Dianne Crampton

Article Overview: A business owner told me the other day that he can't get his sales employees to collaborate well on projects. His previous manager had created an incentive program that rewarded individual sales. The manager had attracted sales associates who thrive in a competitive environment. Due to the economic downturn, the owner had let a few of the low performers go and was consequently reviewing his corporate strategies. What prompted this review was his plummeting market share seized by a competing company with a true team culture. Then he asked me, "How do you get highly competitive sales people to collaborate?" My response offered the following three suggestions.

How to Get a Highly Competitive Sales Force to Collaborate

A business owner told me the other day that he can't get his sales employees to collaborate well on projects. His previous manager had created an incentive program that rewarded individual sales. The manager had attracted sales associates who thrive in a competitive environment. Due to the economic downturn, the owner had let a few of the low performers go and was consequently reviewing his corporate strategies. What prompted this review was his plummeting market share seized by a competing company with a true team culture. Then he asked me, "How do you get highly competitive sales people to collaborate?" My response offered three suggestions.

The first suggestion looks at the innate talent and internal motivations of the sales associates still employed by the company. The manager had attracted employee candidates to a culture that rewarded internal competition and that stressed the notion that one individual could compete and excel at being the best of the best. Shifting the game plan from internally competitive to internally collaborative will take a series of steps and transparent strategies aimed at a clearly identified external target such as market share.

Secondly, clear goals, roles and responsibilities within the company that makes perfect sense to employees who love to compete must be identified and tied to behaviors that serve collaboration.

These are behaviors that can be measured and coached to and are also anchored by an over arching agreement among employees. The purpose is to reduce procedural conflict from a project management perspective that gives employees a new understanding of how to win.

These first two steps are not unlike a skilled basketball coach (my favorite is Gonzaga coach Mark Few) who recruits and manages the skills and talents of accomplished players. The coach inventories these skills and abilities and determines what role team members will play on a game by game basis. For example, based on who the team is playing, some of the coach's team members will play more minutes and others none at all. Some will be focused on rebounding and passing off the ball, others will have to concentrate on who they are guarding and score points, and others will be pulled in and out of the game for strategic reasons. Some will be benched and not play at all.

Where a basketball team falls apart is when team members fail in their roles because their egos are too big to accept playing fewer minutes, or won't assume roles that diminish, in their minds, not being the high point-scorer of the day. Many fail. Some fall apart. And unless the business owner understands the strong leadership and coaching role he must play to take players out of the game or let rogue players go, his efforts will not be successful.

Finally, if business owners want team members to collaborate, they must reward collaboration. This business owner must share profits in a way where highly compensated sales people do not believe their income has been diminished. And, over time, other non-monetary ways to reward collaboration will also surface.

Marshall Goldsmith said, "What Got You Here Won't Get You There." With this business owner, I could not agree more.

In our new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures and Why They Thrive, we look at the best practices of Zappos.com, Dos Gringos, 4Refule, Tribe Inc., and Zephyr Strategy. Composed of 10 to 1,300 employees, these companies share one thing in common. Collaboration is a non-negotiable cultural value that is rewarded and recognized.

People thrive when their efforts are acknowledged -- not only individually, but as a team. If you are serious about establishing a culture based on the notion, "If we win, I win," what's required is a workplace that recognizes kindness, encourages employees to step up to the plate to help others without being asked, and promotes the sharing of information in order to remove obstacles from others, thereby helping all team members be successful.

Related Articles
  Collaboration & Team Building for Sales Force Management Growth
  Sales Training for the Fiery Edge on your Competitors
  Motivation or Sales Process?
  Questions Every CEO Should Be Asking His Sales Managers
  Maximize Your Sales Force

Article Tags: business owner, collaboration team building model, corporate strategies, economic downturn, incentive program, individual sales, market share, successful teams in business, team culture



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